Creeper

Li Chen exchanged for another batch of Spawn Eggs. This time, the six types were Wandering Trader, Zombie, Skeleton, Creeper, Enderman, and Spider.

He spawned one Wandering Trader. Unlike in the game, the Wandering Trader did not come with two llamas, nor could he trade things he did not possess out of thin air.

The Wandering Trader's Martial Soul was an emerald, just like the idiot-scratch that-the Green-Robed Villager's.

And like the Witch, he also had two innate talents: traveling trade and trading.

Li Chen immediately gave him all sixty-three remaining eggs, raising both talents to master level.

"From now on, your name will be Shang Lu. I'll give you two hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins as starting capital, and you can take two level-64 Iron Golems, eight Pillagers, eight Vindicators, and eight Evokers as bodyguards. All the Green-Robed Villagers will also be your subordinates. Your task is simple: establish the Emerald Merchant Guild."

Although he would never lack money as long as he duplicated Gold Soul Coins, establishing a merchant guild would help him collect other resources across the continent and control its economic lifelines.

Since undead creatures burned during the day, he had no choice but to return indoors to summon them. First, he spawned a Zombie with green skin all over. It belonged to the undead and Variant categories, had an initial age equivalent to one hundred years, and came with an infection ability that could turn creatures it killed into zombies.

The Zombie had no intelligence whatsoever and could neither be controlled nor tamed. For now, its only use seemed to be granting it to a Villager as a Martial Soul, though he found its abilities rather underwhelming even as a Martial Soul.

The Skeleton was much the same, lacking infection but coming with an Infinity bow of its own.

Since they could not be controlled or tamed and would attack other creatures besides him, he had Wine Fox finish them off.

The Creeper came next. When spawning it, Li Chen feared it might immediately explode and blow up the house, so he watched it closely, ready to use "Time Stop."

However, the Creeper he spawned was essentially no different from the original: all square edges, and rather than exploding, it simply kept watching him.

[Name]: Creeper

[Category]: Variant

[Age]: 1,000 years

[Skill]: Compressed self-destruction (compresses all the energy in its body and self-destructs, causing destruction over a wide area)

[Age advancement]:

1. Each additional Creeper Spawn Egg increases its age by 1,000 years, up to a maximum of 100,000 years.

2. Feeding it TNT increases its age by 100 years per unit.

[Taming method]: No taming required. The player can give it two commands: move and self-destruct.

"A mobile bomb?" Li Chen had not expected an actual pleasant surprise. Although its upper limit was a little low, one hundred thousand years was still equivalent to a Titled Douluo.

Without hesitation, he promptly took out a Monster Spawner and set it down. Then he took out one stack of the Shulker Boxes he had prepared for duplicating Bottles o' Enchanting that day and put the remaining sixty-three eggs inside to duplicate them.

Finally, he placed one stack of Creeper eggs into the Monster Spawner, while the remaining sixty-two eggs raised the Creeper beside him to sixty-two thousand years.

The surprise the Creeper brought made him look forward to the Enderman as well, but unfortunately, the final result was somewhat disappointing. Apart from not burning during the day, the Enderman was no different from the Zombie or Skeleton.

After Wine Fox killed it, it dropped only one Ender Pearl.

The last remaining Spider was likewise only categorized as a Variant. After raising its age to sixty-four hundred years, Li Chen tossed it aside and left it alone.

Once he had finished all this and briefly assigned a few tasks, he prepared to return to the academy, arriving in the same meeting room.

This time, he wandered around the academy, planning its future expansion and adjustments, and summoned all fifty-six Pillagers, Vindicators, and Evokers to guard it.

Of course, relying solely on them at their current level of zero would certainly not be enough, so Li Chen had also brought blocks of iron and carved pumpkins. Since he had the materials, there was no need to fetch eggs specifically for this.

After he arranged the blocks of iron into a T and placed a carved pumpkin on top, the iron blocks began continuously transforming. Eventually, the pumpkin vanished, replaced by an Iron Golem's head.

Iron Golems spawned this way started at level 64, saving him quite a few iron ingots on upgrades. It took only eight iron ingots to raise one to the maximum level of 72.

Afterward, he repeated the process to create three more Iron Golems, stationing them on the academy's four sides.

A crowd of people and four iron fellows suddenly appearing in the academy could hardly escape its former dean, Zhong Yiheng. However, knowing that a marvel like the Teleportation Stele existed, he did not dwell on it.

Instead, his attention was drawn to the four Iron Golems. They were clearly not human, yet their strength felt no weaker than his own. If more of these things could be made, they would be enough to join the ranks of the Lower Four Sects even without a Soul Douluo.

If Zhong Yiheng knew that the village outside Suotuo City could spawn two Iron Golems every week, and could continue spawning them indefinitely, who knew what he would think?

Naturally, Li Chen would not volunteer such information. Right now, he had a more troubling problem: as his strength increased, he found that these Villagers could do far too little. There were things he wanted them to handle, but without sufficient strength, it was all futile.

Take A San Yi, for instance. Without sufficient strength, he could not even scout The End and return with information. Li Chen had considered forcibly raising his level with Bottles o' Enchanting.

But there was another problem: he would need a great many Soul Rings. There were over a hundred Villagers alone, not to mention these illagers.

That was also why he had taken these Spawn Eggs. He wanted to see whether any of the creatures would be classified as Soul Beasts, which would greatly ease the pressure of obtaining Soul Rings.

Moreover, he had already planned to make "Disable Mob Drops" his ninth Soul Ring.

Thus, he had also put research into obtaining Soul Rings without Soul Beasts on his agenda. During the first installment of the original story, there were God-Given Soul Rings and Blue Silver Grass Soul Rings, while later there were Soul Spirits and Blood Essence Soul Rings. All were promising avenues of research, and they also proved that Soul Rings did not necessarily have to come from Soul Beasts.

However, he knew that merely knowing about them was not enough. If he could obtain a God-Given Soul Ring, he might find a concrete research direction through "Analysis."

Right now, he knew only that they existed and had no information at all, so his research progressed quite slowly.

And starting on his second day back at the academy, Li Chen also had to teach those five teachers. The Soul Emperor called Old Wang chose physical education.

This subject was the simplest: teaching running, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and so on. Its main purpose was to strengthen the body and lay the foundation for later body tempering and physical combat techniques.

Old Li chose mathematics. In practice, the lessons covered only fairly basic topics such as the four arithmetic operations, geometry, and equations. Mathematics already existed on the Douluo Continent, but it had not been organized into a system.

Old Qian chose biology, covering cells, heredity, evolution, metabolism, and homeostasis. It was a relatively difficult subject, since apart from Martial Soul inheritance, Douluo had absolutely no other foundation in this field.

Next, Old Zhou chose physics, covering conservation laws, universal gravitation, the laws of thermodynamics, electromagnetism, relativity, and quantum mechanics.

Finally, Old Pan's subject was the simplest, covering only points, planes, lines, solids, perspective, and color. This subject primarily depended on creativity.

While he taught, Zhong Yiheng attended practically every lesson as an observer. The more he listened, the more shocked he became. He simply could not imagine how a child of seven or eight could know so much.